A: “Yes and no. A little bit. My focus was to, you know, get through the clutter of the 30-second ads and give the country a really clear choice and talk about who we are and what we believe and what our ideas are. I knew he that we going to basically distort and criticize the whole time. That’s what they’ve been doing. And so…his answers weren’t so surprising to me. I felt I had the opportunity to get into the big issues and explain our positions and frame the choice.

“We spent a lot of time on foreign policy, which is fine with me, I also think that’s a great weakness of theirs. And I wanted to get into budget and Obama-care, and I thought there were some great areas to talk about that. I was able to bring it into the debate in one of those questions. But it’s pretty much what I expected. I just wanted the opportunity to give the country a very clear choice, and I think we were able to accomplish that.”

Q: One of the issues that did come up on taxes and budget was that they made their complaint that you guys aren’t offering enough specifics – Biden said it’s “mathematically impossible” for you to offset…

A. “…That’s just totally incorrect.”

Q: Do you feel – and these attacks are only going to increase – that you guys need to offer up more details or at least explain to people so that they are at least a little more confident that you at least have a framework to at least offset the costs?

A. “We’ve been talking about this for months…It’s a really simple…I’ve been working on tax plans for a long time. I’ve been running numbers on tax bills for a long time.

Q: I know. That’s why I asked. You’re a specifics guy.

A. “What we’ve learned from experience – Mitt’s experience as governor, my experience doing tax law – is that you don’t go to Congress and say, ‘Take it or leave it. Here’s my plan. Pass it.’ You say, ‘Here’s my framework, here’s my objectives. Now, let’s figure out together how to accomplish these objectives.’ That’s how you maximize the possibility of getting things done. That’s how Tip O’Neill and Reagan did it.

“And so the framework, the numbers do add up. You can lower rates across the board by 20%. You can do that through base broadening without affecting middle-class taxpayers.

“The framework is three bottom lines: No. 1, don’t increase the deficit, meaning revenue neutral…Second, make sure that middle-income taxpayers don’t have a tax increase. Third, don’t reduce the share of the burden born by the higher-income individuals. You can do all of that because most of your base-broadening occurs on the higher-end – you have the understand that people in the top two tax brackets, they’re the ones who disproportionately use tax expenditures. So you have $1.1 trillion in tax expenditures on a current revenue code that raises about $1.2 trillion. So, there’s a lot of fiscal space to keep those things alive, to keep exactly what we’re saying. And that we need to figure out, with Congress, on how to do that.”

Q: But to use the White House numbers, $4.8 trillion…

A: “The point is: Their numbers are incorrect.”

Q: But if you go through those numbers, with the AMT and keeping the Bush tax rates where they are, it’s about $4.8 trillion…

A: “$4.8 trillion is where we’re heading with all the tax increases coming. What we’re simply saying is ‘Don’t raise taxes.’ Remember these are baselines. We’re going from where they are in law to where they are. That’s the delta you’re talking about. But we’re saying no – keep it where we are.”

Q: But CBO isn’t going to recognize that.

A: “Well, they do actually. CBO has two different baselines. They’ve got the current the law baseline, which nobody believes, they have the alternative fiscal scenario.

“What we’re saying is, ‘Not raising taxes is not cutting taxes.’ They’re saying, ‘Failure to raise taxes is a tax cut.’ That’s not what Americans see when they sit at their kitchen table and they say, ‘Are my taxes going to be the same next year as this year?’…Then that’s keeping them the same, not cutting their taxes.”

Q: To return to the premise of the question about whether you should offer more details – you’re a details guy, you always fought your own leadership on offering more details – you’re not negotiating a bill right now, you’re running for president.

A: “We shouldn’t be negotiating the details of tax reform in the middle of a campaign.”

Q: But there is an argument to be made that you should be articulating some of this stuff a little more specifically so that voters know what they’re in for.

A: “I think we’re doing just fine on that, which is here is our bottom line: no tax increases on middle-income taxpayers, no deficit increase, don’t raise the share paid by the higher income tax rates, lower tax rates by 20%. And then within that framework, which is a pretty proscribed framework, work with Congress on how to get those details put in place because that’s how you maximize the chance of getting it done.

“There is room, meaning fiscal space, for preferences for middle-income people for charities, for home purchases, for health care, for savings. Six studies have verified that. So we know that we’re in good, firm territory in establishing this framework. And what we believe is if we go down and say take it or leave it Democrats or Republicans, you know, this is our plan, our way or the highway. Then, we won’t get it done. It will just be a platitude. We actually want to get this done.”

“Here’s why we’re doing this: You lower tax rates, you create growth. You lower tax rates, you make small businesses more competitive. Eighty percent of businesses file their taxes as individuals and their effective top tax rate is going to 44.8% in January. That will crush growth. That will kill jobs.”

Q: Given the debate and the fact that you guys, Republicans generally, have been fighting for a year with the president and obviously the debate was fairly feisty on Thursday night, do you think that this is helping in any way pave the way for some sort of broad deal on taxes and the deficit?

A: “I do. Here’s why. It’s my own experience by talking with Democrats, Mitt’s experience by working with Democrats as governor, is if you look at the kind of things we’re offering – the Medicare reforms, the kind of tax reform we’re offering – these ideas have historic bipartisan consensus.

“Premium support for Medicare, just like what Ron Wyden and Alice Rivlin and I put together, which came from the Clinton commission, there is a bipartisan consensus, there used to be a bipartisan consensus on how to fix that. It became politicized by this administration. Bowles-Simpson says lower tax rates, broaden the base. Reagan-O’Neill, lower tax rates, broaden the base. So, we have a history of bipartisan consensus on these major reforms that we think are necessary to prevent a debt crisis to grow the economy. It’s just that we have a huge barrier right now to realizing that – President Obama. Harry Reid is also part of that barrier.

“And so our point is: We’re going to win this election. We’re going to be magnanimous in how we do it. We’re going to invite those reform-minded Democrats and anybody who wants to participate into these conversations to then recognize these reforms, which have historic bipartisan consensus.

“So, the way we see this, what people like me have done on Medicare reform, what many people have done on tax reform, is they planted the seeds of a bipartisan consensus that could be recognized or realized in 2013, with the right kind of leadership. That’s the kind of leadership we’re saying we’re going to present. And we believe we can get this fixed in 2013.”

Q: But look at the fight over this $716 billion – it was in your budget, it was in the president’s budget (crosstalk) – but it is a cut to providers, or future expected payments. And that was something that seems like you could agree on, but if you look at it in context of this race, you now have Mitt Romney running ads on that chunk of money which presumably is going to be used to pay down the deficit.

A: “Two things I would say. No.1, when we put that budget out, we said we need to revisit things like Medicare Advantage and the damage that these things do to Medicare. So, we said, asterisk, you know, more or less, this needs to be revisited because of the damage it will do to the current Medicare program.”

Q: I don’t follow.

A: “It would be 7.4 million seniors are supposed to be, according to Medicare, kicked out of Medicare Advantage.

Q: But those are largely overpayments, right?

A. “It depends. It’s a long story. Some are, some aren’t. That’s a mixed story.”

“But the point is I’m joining the Romney ticket, and the Romney position is really clear – that goes back to Medicare, and that’s what our proposal is.”

“Now, here’s the other thing with the 716, if you just look at the actuaries’ testimony – read their appendix to the trustees’ report, which is fairly unprecedented, or Doug Elmendorf’s testimony to the budget committee – you can’t count the same dollar twice. You can’t, in one sentence, say Obama-care is paid for, it reduces the deficit, look at the numbers – which, it’s done on the backs of Medicare – and then say this extends the solvency of Medicare. You can’t take the same dollar and spend it two different places. And so, what the experts tell us is that’s double counting, and that’s why you cannot say, like the president says, you know, Obama-care is an act of fiscal prudence and Medicare is being advanced. You can’t say that. That’s just not factually correct.”

Q: Have you done enough to talk about premium supports, has the campaign done enough to kind of sell this idea?

A. “I talk about it fairly often.”

Q: But you did it a lot as a House member. I haven’t been out with you a ton. Romney talks about it in general terms, but the campaign hasn’t necessarily defended this.

A: “Oh, no, when I went to The Villages.”

Q: Or rather, you’ve defended it, you went to The Villages, but it’s not something that you’re actively selling.

A. “I wouldn’t say that. I talk about it quite a bit…I do town hall meetings, and I try to get into it. You know, town-hall meetings are whatever people want to talk about, but I explain how this thing works quite a bit. I’ve done so many speeches where I explain how this works, how it’s bipartisan, the way it works, and the way it’s the best way to save it for the next generation.

“The best way to save it for my Mom’s generation…The best way to fix it for them is to fix it for us. And this is the best way to fix it for us, and I’ve been explaining it quite a bit.”

Q: So you do think you’ve sown the seeds to actually do this if you’re elected?

A. “Oh heavens, yes. Not only have we sown the seeds by talking about it with people in the country, but by working with people in Congress across the aisle we’ve sown the seeds.”

Q: No matter what happens on Nov. 6, you’re going to be a leading voice in this discussion moving forward, whether it happens this year or it happens next year, how do you view your role moving forward?

A. “We have a debt crisis coming, we need to prevent it.”

Q: But what do you view your role as?

A: “When Mitt asked me to join the ticket, he said a number of things, but we had a long conversation about this which he says, ‘You were a leader in Congress to push these reforms, to see this crisis coming, to try and prevent it, and you’ve shown, you know, how to get things through Congress. I want you to help me do that next year to prevent a debt crisis to get this fiscal house in order.’”

Q: Was this before you had agreed to sign on?

A: “This was when he asked me to sign on. This is one of the reasons why he asked me to sign on. And so, it was because of my leadership and the reforms I’d been pushing that he asked me. He said, ‘I need help. I want your help to help me save this country from a debt crisis, to get this economy back on track. I know business, I know leadership. You know Congress, you know economics. That experience compliments mine quite well. I want you to join me to help me do this.’”

“Two or three weeks afterward, after we got announced, he said, ‘You know I picked you because I thought you would be excellent for governing, that you would help articulate the choice before the country, but I didn’t know if you would be a good campaigner or not.’ And he said, ‘You’re not so bad.’”

Q: I never saw you as a political guy.

A: “I’ve never really seen myself as one.”

Q: So how has the campaign been? We used to sit in your office, and you would say you don’t like to spend weekends in Washington because I want to be home with my kids.

A: “I don’t. I never did. I did once maybe for a wedding.”

Q: So, what’s the impact been on the family? And how has the scrutiny been – you’ve been questioned for what time you ran a marathon and how many hills you climbed?

A: “Well, that one was accurate. It was just the reporter who reported it paraphrased it the wrong way.”

Q: The point being is that people are scrubbing parts of your past no one has ever questioned.

A: “The way I look at this is they can’t say you’re unintelligent. They can’t say you’re mean and evil. So, they’re just going to say you’re dishonest. So, it seems to me that that was the political tactic that they’ve taken. Obviously, I don’t think that it’s working, but that’s what they’re trying to do. My guess is they’re going to call us liars for the next month, that they’re going to call us dishonest. I think that’s the tactic they’ve taken. Now, the reason, I say this is because they’re not offering anything new.

Q: Are you’re okay with that?

A: “It is what it is. I don’t worry about things that are outside of my control, what the political tactics are…I think people are going to see through this because look at what they’re doing. They don’t have solutions. They’re not talking about how they’re going to fix things. They’re not going to do things differently. They’re just trying to trash us and win by default. “Hope” and “Change” is attack and blame and defame. So, they’re basically saying what they accused John McCain of four years ago – if you don’t have a record to run on, paint your opponent as someone people should run from. And they’ve chosen to basically say that we’re, to attack us in this way.”

Q: Has it been dispiriting at all, the stories about the polls, the numbers don’t look good?

A: “No, that stuff just goes all over the place. Polls move up and down. It’s going to be a very close race all the way to the end. It’s a very close race right now. I think these debates have helped crystallize the choice. I think these debates have helped change the dynamics of the race. And I think these debates have shown Mitt and I are offering specific solutions to grow the economy, to get people back to work. We’re not going to run from these problems, we’re going to tackle these problems. And the president is trying to win this election by default.

“They’re basically trying to nullify the notion that there’s an alternative to what they’ve put out for the country. They’re trying to suggest that if you want any security in your life, stick with us. If you go with these Republicans, it’s a dog-eat-dog world. They’re using the proverbially straw man argument to try and affix views that we don’t have to us to try and defeat them. It’s intellectually lazy, but it’s the way the president has been making these arguments for four years. And I just think people are going to see through these things.”

Q: You’ve done your acceptance speech, you’ve done your debate, you were rolled out. Those are the three big milestones. Anything surprise you about the process?

A: “I had probably the best night’s sleep I’ve had last night in a few weeks…I slept like a log. It was great.”

Q: So, what next? Are you just going to hit the trail?

A: “Yeah, I’m just now hitting the trail. I’m going to do a lot of town halls. I’m going to do a lot of rallies, things like that. So, yeah, I’m just going to hit the trail.”

Q: Could you guys take a deal that raises revenue in some way if it’s coupled with some sort of fundamental…

A: “Rate reductions?”

Q: And meaningful entitlement reform?

A: “Well, it’s not as if Republicans haven’t offered this before. Toomey put this on the table through his plan in the super-committee. But we think the best way to raise revenues is to grow the economy. If you actually look at the chart of revenue growth versus tax-rate increases, they don’t track with tax-rate increases.

“Revenue growth tracks with economic growth. So, the objective is to grow the economy. And that means do what you believe is the best way to grow the economy – lowering tax rates, broadening the base, energy policy, good regulatory policy, preventing a debt crisis. Look, there’s so much uncertainty hanging out there that is putting a chilling effect on hiring. It’s the threat of massive tax-rate increases. It’s the big borrowing today is nothing more than tomorrow’s tax increase or inflation. It’s all of these regulations coming through that is putting a lot of uncertainty in the marketplace. It’s are we going to be like Europe in a couple of years. If we address those things right now, we will grow this economy.

“We are convinced of it. We know we will grow this economy. I believe we can have this economy take off next year, in 2013, when we put these specific policies in place. That then means revenues will take off. You don’t look at life in a static way, like the pie is fixed.”

Q: Like the Congressional Budget Office, for example?

A: “Yeah, and so we have to use static scoring, but we don’t believe in it because e believe that with the right policies in place, the economy grows and people stop collecting unemployment and they start getting a paycheck and paying taxes. Their lives are made better off, the economy grows, revenues grow and we get this deficit under control. You’ve got to have growth.”

Q: Foreign policy was the bulk of the debate, so I’ve got to ask one question. Do you worry at all about politicizing Libya?

A: “No, I think this story is a troubling story that is telling itself. We are not trying to politicize Libya…We, like any other American, want to get to the bottom of it and want answers so that we can prevent this from happening again. Looks, Democrats and the Republicans, together in Congress, are calling for answers. The reason we want answers is to make sure that something like this doesn’t happen again.”

Q: So how has the campaign been on your family?

A: “I told the campaign when I got picked, I need to be with my family at least one day a week. I want Sundays at home as best as possible, so I can go to mass and watch the Packers. And if I’m on the road, I want to watch the Packers.”

Q:(I took a shot at the Packers, as a Bears fan, and we went back and forth for a bit.)

A: “So, I got the NFL Sunday ticket on the Internet, so I get the Packers streaming…So, I said I want to go to my own church as much as possible, I want to watch the Packers, and I want to be with my family at least one day a week. Sunday, I’m going to spend Sunday afternoon doing something with Tommy Thompson, so I’ll get to go to mass, I’ll get to go be at home. But since I had a half-day with my family this week, I said, well, let’s bring ‘em on the road…The kids have only missed three or four days of school – we’re pretty good at making sure they don’t miss school. But it’s an 80-day sprint or whatever it is…They’re bringing their homework on the road.”

Q: Anything surprised you?

A: “Not really, not that I can say. I mean, the security is different than it is when you’re in Congress.”

About Washington Wire

Washington Wire is one of the oldest standing features in American journalism. Since the Wire launched on Sept. 20, 1940, the Journal has offered readers an informal look at the capital. Now online, the Wire provides a succession of glimpses at what’s happening behind hot stories and warnings of what to watch for in the days ahead. The Wire is led by Reid J. Epstein, with contributions from the rest of the bureau. Washington Wire now also includes Think Tank, our home for outside analysis from policy and political thinkers.